The Campus Health Crisis for Students of Color
Anxiety, depression, and stress are not the three words that people want greeting them first thing in the morning, but for the majority of college students they are part of everyday life. Most don’t know what to do about it.
“Seize the Awkward” is a national campaign by the JED Foundation, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the AdCouncil that
A New and More Complete View of Student Life
Back to school season is a period of new beginnings and outrageous stress. When my daughter graduated high school, she enrolled at the same university as a fellow classmate. The anticipation of going to college is stressful, but no one imagined that her classmate would tragically die by suicide during the first days of student orientation. The sadness of this experience resurfaced for me this week when I learned that Dr. Greg Eells, executive director of counseling and psychological services at the University of Pennsylvania, took his own life.
There is no irony in this. Only tragedy and an urgent need for our attention.
Dr. Eells was one of the most respect and innovative professionals working with young people. For over 15 years before his move to Penn, Dr. Eells headed up CAPS (the Counseling and Psychological Services department) at Cornell University. He was an expert on resilience and I have frequently shared his TEDx talk about cultivating resilience with parents and students. Dr. Eells is responsible for encouraging so many students to seek help when they are suffering from emotional challenges. In addition to his psychological expertise, Dr. Eells devoted himself to reducing the stigma of seeking help.
People Suffering from Anxiety and Depression are Not Weak
For nearly 20 years, the JED Foundation has been the leader in providing guidelines, resources, and advocacy for the emotional health and wellbeing of young people. Dr, Eells has been a good friend of the JED Foundation and a partner in so many initiatives that are preventing suicide on college campuses. His death is another reminder that this is tricky and uncertain work and that we must diligently care for those at risk -- including caring for the caregivers.
“I learned so much from this man about emotional acceptance and pursuing what really matters in life. He was a kind man who listened to everyone,”
—Shawn Meyers, student
Programs developed by JED are now being used on the majority of college campuses and JED’s comprehensive Campus Progam is addressing and improving mental health outcomes for millions of students. A quick inquiry to your campus health center, alumni office, or school president’s office can tell you if your school is improving the wellbeing of its students with the JED Campus Program.
I have been on the board of directors of the JED Foundation for nearly 15 years. Thanks to brilliant and effective health innovators like Dr. Eells, the JED team, and others, student mental health services are more accessible and more utilized than ever before. An enormous accomplishment for a crisis that was shunned and unspoken just a few years ago. People suffering from anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses are not weak, they are ill. We treat illnesses in this country and we invest in better outcomes. Doing this requires conversations.
Conversations about mental health are especially uncommon among people of color. While many college students arrive on campus feeling emotionally and academically unprepared, first-year African American college students are more likely than their white peers to report feeling overwhelmed most or all of the time during their first term (51% vs. 40%). Students of color are also less likely to seek help than their white peers.
To address these needs, the JED Foundation teamed up with The Stephen P. Rose Legacy Foundation (the Steve Find), the Coolest Charity in the World This Week.
While all college students face a variety of challenges including social, emotional, financial, and academic pressures, students of color often experience additional sources of psychological distress compared to their white peers. Discrimination, impostorism, stigma, cultural mistrust, and feelings of isolation are among the factors that can adversely impact the mental and emotional wellbeing of students of color. Of the 20 million students enrolled in college today, 42% identify as students of color.
Together, JED and the Steve Fund developed the Equity in Mental Health Framework, comprehensive recommendations and practical implementation strategies that address the unique challenges faced by students of color. The Equity in Mental Health Framework is the product of exhaustive and direct research of students of color and their mental health. The recommendations are based largely on JED’s Campus Program and specifically modified based on student behavior, mental health service utilization, pre-post health outcomes, graduation rates, and other data observed during these studies.
Addressing the mental health needs of students of color, the Stephen C. Rose Legacy Foundation is more simply known as “The Steve Fund”
Like most crises, there is no time to waste addressing the mental health needs of our young people and across our population. Over 47,000 Americans killed dies by suicide in 2017 and that number is rising, according to the US government’s National Center for Health Statistics. Half of all suicides in America are from guns. People of color are disproportionately likely to use firearms as a means of suicide.
Donations to the Stephen C. Rose Legacy Foundation are tax-deductible and can be made at https://www.stevefund.org/. For more information, please visit their website or contact the author at CoolestCharity.org
